Une Ficelle
by simply loverly
Summary: She fell in love with the roses, and then fell in love with the man. She paid the price. —Gertrud, as a magical girl


Une Ficelle

She was the type to fall in love with beauty at first sight.

However, it was not the superficial beauties by which all other female youths possessed an affinity for nowadays. Her affairs always occurred with the flowers – first, the shy little violets that blossomed sporadically throughout glossy meadows, then the silk-twisted irises, the boughs of peonies, the apple blossoms on barken branches.

But the greatest affair of all occurred with roses.

In her garden, she sat drinking her tea in a most regal fashion, while watching as the new gardener arrived. He waved her a cheery hello, then set to work clipping away at the bushes and trimming strayed vines with butterflies flying to and fro.

He grinned at her again, and she gave a tentative smile in return.

Rather perplexed by his ingenuous disposition, she sat watching him as he snipped the rose vines with graceful gestures that seemed to call out to her. He brought beauty into the world.

The air seemed afloat with warmth at the thought.

* * *

One day, he bounded up to her and offered her a rose, the ripest of reds.

-"This is for you, little princess."

She blushed and timidly accepted it, treasuring it in a vase in her room upstairs, away from prying eyes of parents.

She was fluent not in the language of flowers, but knew that to present a bouquet of red roses to a beloved was an expression of perhaps deep affection. And suddenly, she wanted to reciprocate his kindness.

She threw a glance towards the tiny rose seedlings, freshly planted only half the spring ago.

* * *

But everything, all of it she'd done wrong, and now tiny saplings lay in ruined, pathetic mounds on the dirt below. The only results she'd garnered were her soft hands, whipped with dirt and stone, were hard and coarse.

She raised them up to her face and stared at them.

A voice. - "I can grant you any wish you'd like."

She was an incompetent fool, who could never bring even simple beauty into the world, because she was a rich man's daughter and raised only to take and not give.

-"Can you really?"

If only a miracle could be granted to her. He could have no true regard for her like this – he was older than she, and she was barely noticeable in any way at all. If only she could bring true beauty into the world. Then she would be worthy of the man with the mustache's affections.

-"If you wish it, I can make it reality."

But that could never happen. But the voice in front of her proposed that it could happen, if only she would place faith in him. She took a sharp inhale.

The voice in front of her wagged its plumose tail and glinted its red eyes.

* * *

These were sweet roses, smelling wonderful and looking wonderful and bringing beauty at its best to the world.

She was proud of her garden, proud of newfound magic, and proud of herself when she went up and presented them to the mustached man. He gave her a gentle smile and graciously accepted them. She felt like she was Queen and he was her King.

She didn't mind so much anymore that her hands were so rough. She had never been happier.

* * *

Her mother often gave her reproof – why were her hands so disgusting, why was she always in the garden, why was she spending so much time around this man? She answered with a lie half-bounded with truth.

Perhaps their friendship may have been just shy of something. But she didn't need deep-hearted love, she only needed to be with him and her garden, and that was enough.

In the afternoons, they would sit together while she sipped her tea among the butterflies. Or, they would garden together, cutting and trimming and planting roses. They would talk of trivial things – and she would laugh whenever he said anything humorous, and he would tell her she had a beautiful smile. And that was all she had ever wanted, she felt.

But the man had wanted and gone with a stranger lady with a freshly plump stomach and rosy tint to the apples of her cheeks. With them it seemed left precious beauty she once cherished. She had made a wish that could give, but she herself could no longer take. And being a girl of a rich, upper class breeding, she was not used to such.

A voice. - "But that's not really true. It's not over for you. You can still take one last thing."

Vengeance strikes harder than any other sword, she thought. She snipped a rose head off the vine. And then another.

* * *

They were gone.

For the first weeks, people questioned their mysterious disappearance to themselves, not acknowledging the girl sitting in her garden, sipping tea, surrounded by ugly brown butterflies and white dandelion puffs.

And her roses.

She chided herself that she still had her roses. Her garden of the most beautiful roses, the sweet roses, the dog roses, red roses, pink roses, white roses, thornless roses, thorny roses.

(Except for two. Two roses, wilted on the ground that no one wanted because they were weeds.)

"As long as you're here, I'm not alone."

She was the queen again, sitting on a throne of velvet and surrounded by butterflies and her array of flowers.

And as long as she had her roses, then nothing else mattered.

* * *

_Okay, derp. I know it's sappy but I wanted to write something and since everything went bye-bye on this account, I thought I might as well write a story about Gertrude that I've had in mind. I know it's pretty much obsolete to write about any of the TV series witches, what with Rebellion and all, but I'm unoriginal lol. Anyway, even if you hated it, please leave me a review! I'd appreciate some constructive criticism. Thank you! :)_


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